Wednesday, September 26, 2012

If you're a fan of The Yardbirds, you're probably aware of their 1965 hit song, 'For Your Love'. It peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart and became their highest charting single in the U.S., peaking at number six.

Groovy. Yeah? Yeah! However, you might be surprised to learn that The Yardbirds didn't write the song.

'For Your Love' was written by Graham Gouldman, future 10cc member. side note: 10cc had a hit with one of the most covered songs in pop/rock history called, 'I'm Not in Love'. Gouldman wrote 'For Your Love' at the age of 19 while working by day in a gentlemen's outfitters in the U.K. and playing by night with the semi-professional Manchester band the Mockingbirds (in which his future 10cc bandmate Kevin Godley was also a member). Gouldman said, "I was sleeping most of the time because I'd been gigging with the Mockingbirds the night before, and then during the day when I'd got any spare time I'd write in the shop. I used to shut up the shop at lunch time and sit in the back writing." He also wrote two other songs that were hits for The Yardbirds - 'Heartful Of Soul' and 'Evil Hearted You'.

Interviewed on 'I Write the Songs', BBC Radio Wales, December 25, 2006, Gouldman said, "We went down to Denmark Street and went round all the publishers trying to find a song . . . we didn’t get any songs that we liked or we weren’t given any songs period and the Beatles had started and I thought ‘well, I’m gonna really have a crack at song-writing.’ I had dabbled a bit, but they were really my inspiration and gave me and I think a lot of other people the courage to actually do it. We all wanted to be like the Beatles. I wrote two songs and the record company we were with turned down one of the songs. The song they turned down was 'For Your Love', which eventually found its way to the Yardbirds."

Gouldman's manager, Harvey Lisberg, was so impressed by the song he told Gouldman they should offer it to the Beatles. Gouldman's response was, "I think they're doing alright in the songwriting department, actually." Undeterred, Lisberg gave a demo of the song to Ronnie Beck of Feldman's, who took it to the Hammersmith Odeon, where the Beatles were performing. By coincidence the Yardbirds were also performing on a Christmas show at the venue and Beck played the song to their manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, and the band.

The Yardbirds - For Your Love (promotional film on French TV - Discorama - June 20, 1965)

In 1965 The Mockingbirds began a regular warm-up spot for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops, transmitted from Manchester. Gouldman recalled, "There was one strange moment when The Yardbirds appeared on the show doing 'For Your Love'. Everyone clamoured around them – and there I was just part of an anonymous group. I felt strange that night, hearing them play my song."

Despite the success 'For Your Love' gave The Yardbirds, it signaled the departure of guitarist Eric Clapton, who played on the track with strong reluctance. Dismayed with the group's shift from R&B to pop, Clapton left the Yardbirds to join John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.

Other Covers (Not all of 'em, just some of the ones I like!) are below: